


pieces want to be together

by sabrinachill



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2019-12-25 13:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18261866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabrinachill/pseuds/sabrinachill
Summary: a collection of unrelated ficlets originally posted to my tumblr





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is here simply because I don't trust that Tumblr isn't going to spontaneously implode at any moment.
> 
> This first one is for elliebird's prompt: “Neither one of us is drunk enough for this conversation.”

Alex doesn’t know how to explain it at first. Endorphins, maybe, or just an excellent distraction in the form of a black cowboy hat and daily orgasms. 

But every time he’s around Michael, his leg stops aching.

It’s as if it’s easier to walk, like he’s lighter or the prosthetic doesn’t chafe or something. He almost feels _whole_ again. And he just writes it off as the high of being in love— 

—Until the day of the almost-accident.

They’re in Michael’s truck, parked on the shoulder of a dusty desert road and making out like teenagers because they couldn’t wait until they made it all the way out to Alex’s remote cabin. Michael has his hand dangerously high on Alex’s thigh and Alex has Michael’s bottom lip between his, his teeth dragging lightly over it, and Michael groans and Alex is straining against his jeans and everything is as good as it has ever been and then— 

The car doesn’t have its headlights on; they don’t see it coming until it looms large against the darkness through the windshield.

It’s moving too fast and already far too close; all Alex can do is hold tight to Michael and brace himself against the dashboard. There is no way it isn’t going to smash into them head-on.

But then it just…doesn’t. 

It slows and swerves and _lifts_ in a way that’s unnatural, a way that’s against every law of physics and aerodynamics that Alex learned during his time at the Air Force Academy.

And Michael is frozen beside him, one arm outstretched toward the car, his skin suddenly a little pale and clammy.

It’s impossible. It’s _ridiculous._ But Michael sure looks like someone who just lifted a car.

_With his mind._

“Oh my god.”

“Alex, please, I can explain—“

“Oh my _god.”_ Because Alex doesn’t really believe it, _can’t_ believe it. It’s crazy, it’s insane, but Michael is pleading and his face is as open and honest as Alex has ever seen it and holy _shit_ Michael just did that. “You… you’re…”

Michael turns the ignition, the engine catching with a roar, and peels out in a spray of dirt and gravel, pushing the old truck as fast is it will go. 

“Where are we going?” Alex asks, shaky and panicky, as if he half expects the answer to be _the spaceship_ or  _my home planet_ or something.

“The bar,” is what Michael actually says, in typical Guerin fashion. “Neither one of us is drunk enough for this conversation.”

***

Maria takes one look at them and just leaves the whole bottle of whiskey.

And, after half a dozen sequential shots, Michael is finally feeling fuzzy enough to deal with whatever happens next.

Maybe Alex will freak out and dump him.

Maybe he’ll turn him in to the military.

Maybe he’ll be the one who performs the first experiment; maybe he’ll make the initial incision.

All Michael can do is hold tight to faith and trust and pray that it’s enough.

“Alex, I am still the same person I have always been.”

Alex huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, but you’re not actually a _person_ at all, are you?”

“Really?” Michael scoffs. “You, of all people, are going to take that attitude toward someone because they happen to be a little different?”

“This isn’t an emo punk phase or a sexual orientation, Guerin! This is—“ he looks around the bar, ensuring that they’re secluded in the corner, that the other patrons are drunk enough and loud enough that they can’t overhear this conversation. “This is about you lying to me. For ten goddamned _years._ ”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything.” Michael runs his fingers through his hair, curls wild and gravity-defying. “But I wanted to. God, Alex, I have never wanted to tell anyone anything so much in my _life_. It killed me to hide this from you, but,” Michael swallows, and looks up at himself in the mirror behind the Wild Pony’s bar. In its dusty reflection he sees himself at eighteen, hopeful and scared and so in love that he can’t see straight. 

He’d wanted to trust Alex then. He has no choice but to trust him now. 

“But it wasn’t my secret to tell.”

Alex’s stare has gone a little glassy, but he’s still sharp enough to put the pieces together. “Max. Isobel. They're…”

“They’re your friends,” Michael says, emphatically, looking straight into Alex’s dark eyes. “And I’m the guy that loves you.”

Alex blinks, sitting up a little straighter, gripping the edge of the bar so tightly his knuckles bleach white. “You’ve never said that to me before.”

Michael shakes his head and pours them both another round. “Yeah, well, that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Alex just lets the whiskey sit untouched in front of him. Instead, he’s studying Michael, thoughts shifting, rearranging, snapping together in new, sharper ways. He could bring up anything, any of their interactions over the last decade, but there’s only one thing he really needs to know. One thing that will confirm his suspicions about _who_ Michael is, no matter _what_ he may be. 

“You use your powers to help me walk, don’t you?”

Michael flushes, absently tracing his fingertip through a drop of spilled whiskey and drawing shiny, abstract patterns with it on the dark wood of the bar. 

“I don’t like to see you in pain,” he finally admits, his voice so quiet it’s nearly drowned out by the bar noise.

But Alex hears him just fine.

He softens, some of the rigidity going out of his spine, something loosening in his expression. He reaches for Michael’s mangled hand, gently rubbing his thumb across the lumps and rough, angry red scar tissue. “You, either.”

Michael tosses back another shot and takes a deep, steadying breath. “I understand if this means…if it means you can’t be with me anymore.”

Alex recoils, as if repelled by the very idea. “No, I just… Are you hiding any other secrets from me?”

“Yes,” Michael answers, immediately and emphatically. He’s done lying; he already feels fifty pounds lighter, no matter what the outcome of this conversation is. “But then, aren’t you?”

Michael is certain that there’s more to the story of why Alex is back in Roswell, why the military acquired the crash site, why Alex knew Michael was an alien as soon as he saw his powers.

And Alex just swallows and looks away; Michael isn’t sure what the expression flashing behind his eyes is but it’s one he can’t recognize, one he’s never seen on Alex before. One teenaged Alex wouldn’t have been capable of making. 

“That’s fair enough, I suppose,” Alex finally answers.

Michael rubs his palms down the thighs of his jeans and takes a deep breath. “So what does all of this mean for us?”

Alex slaps a hundred dollar bill on the bar and stands; Michael reaches out with his mind and lifts some of the pressure off Alex’s leg. He doesn’t think about it; it’s just a reflex at this point. And he’s not sure how Alex will respond to it.

But Alex smiles and offers Michael his hand. 

“I think it means we need to run away together.”

Michael laughs a little, stunned. “What?”

“It’s what we should have done ten years ago when everything was terrible and overwhelming. So, at least for a long weekend, I think we should run. Leave Roswell and the Air Force and your _heritage_ behind and just…be. We’ll figure out how to deal with everything else later.”

In answer, Michael just grins.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> post 1x07, for ExistentialMalaise's prompt:" Guess who only got two hours of sleep? Me, lol, I’m gonna die."

The molded plastic chair is cold and unforgiving on his ass; Michael shifts his weight for the third time in five minutes.

There’s an incessant hum from the greenish fluorescent lightbulb overhead and the air holds the acrid tang of bleach and antiseptic and the foul, persistent stench of sickness. 

Michael would rather be literally anywhere else on this planet or any other. But this is where Isobel is.

So he sits.

And waits.

He wants to be back there with her as she’s processed and assigned a room. He wants to smile at her terrible jokes and pop culture references, to do what he can to make this cold, impersonal place feel a little more welcoming — but he can’t. 

He isn’t allowed.

“Family only,” the admitting nurse said, before ushering the Evans “twins” through a locked door that clanged shut behind them, trapping Michael on the outside.

Again.

But this moment is about Isobel and what she needs, not another opportunity for him to wallow in his own self-pity. He’s got plenty of drunken nights ahead of him for that.

So he pulls out his phone and scrolls through pictures of her and rereads their text exchanges, smiling at a gif she’d sent him of SpongeBob Squarepants.

Her last text was sent earlier that day; he assumes she typed it while rolled up in the blanket burrito he later found her in. _Guess who only got two hours of sleep? Me, lol, I’m gonna die._

It’s typical Isobel — faux breeziness plastered over words that imply a much deeper problem. A problem that she’s now trying to solve by having herself _institutionalized_.

Michael shifts in the chair again, squeezing his phone so hard the plastic case cracks. They should have found another way. _He_ should have found another way. Something that didn’t involve locking up his own family, treating her like a criminal or a zoo animal. 

He traces his thumb over her last words again.

_I’m gonna die._

And rage bursts within him, scorching like a fireball. 

With some combination of his arm and his mind, Michael hurls his phone against the seafoam green wall. It shatters in an explosion of broken shards and metal bits, powdered glass falling like iridescent snow over the mess. 

No one comes running at the sharp sound; there’s no one around at this time of the night to hear it.

So he rubs his hand over his face and takes a shaky breath, trying to calm the fury burning through his veins. He needs to get up. He needs to move, to leave, to _run_. He needs fresh air and blazing sunshine and greasy car parts in his hands. He needs a goddamned _drink._

He puts his hands on his thighs and starts to stand—

—and someone sinks into the plastic chair beside him. 

“I heard about Isobel.”

Alex’s voice is always so soft, so smooth. It’s a gentle breeze through a field of soft grass, it’s a babbling brook, it’s birds singing from the top of a tall oak tree.

It grounds Michael and holds him steady, soothes that part of him that’s always wanting to rage and destroy.

He settles back down in his chair.

“Did Max call you?” Michael asks, his voice like rough granite.

“Yeah,” Alex answers. “He said you might need someone.”

Michael shakes his head, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “He shouldn’t have done that. He doesn’t know that you— that we aren’t—“

“I’m glad he did,” Alex says, saving Michael from having to finish any of those painful thoughts. 

Alex tilts his head and surveys the shattered glass and electronics with a knowing smile. “Though it seems I didn’t make it here in time to save your phone.”

Michael laughs, humorlessly. “Its fate was sealed the second I bought it. Everything around me winds up broken.”

“I didn’t,” Alex answers. “I’m not broken.”

Michael blinks and turns to look at him, _really_ look at him. Alex’s eyes are clear; his posture straight. Despite everything life has thrown at him, he’s still here. He’s still _Alex._  

“No, you’re not,” Michael says. 

And it gives him a glimmer of hope that maybe Isobel won’t be either.

Around them, the waiting room is empty and echoing; their breath seems loud in the still air. Alex reaches over and weaves his fingers through those of Michael’s good hand and squeezes.

Michael can feel the rhythmic rise and fall of Alex breathing beside him; he strokes his thumb over the thin skin inside Alex’s wrist and feels the strong, steady beat of his heart.

Michael tries to match it, to copy that strength. 

And, for the first time since he walked into this place, he feels like maybe he’ll be able to walk back out again.

Because Alex always makes him feel brave.

Still, he knows that nothing has changed. They are who they are, and they have a long way to go before a moment like this can last. 

So soon enough the sun will rise and a new day will begin. They’ll leave this place and go their separate ways, live their separate lives.

But for now, in this liminal space, wrapped in the still silence of the small hours of the morning, they can have _this_.

The warm, solid comfort of strong shoulders pressing together, of squeezing fingers, of familiarity and ease and support.

Michael stares back down the hall to where Isobel was taken from him.

And he waits.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1x09 Coda

Three days later, Alex gets a text. 

_Meet me at Crashdown. Noon._

He arrives to find Michael sitting in a booth by the window, the sunlight streaming through and catching on the highlights in his curls, turning his brown eyes to honeyed caramel. He’s done up an extra button or two on his green shirt and his jeans look like he pulled them out of the pile of clean laundry. 

It’s more effort than Alex has seen from him since high school. 

“What is this?”

Michael slings an arm across the top of the booth and leans back with that smile that everyone else believes is so cocky; Alex can see the uncertainty lurking in its corners. “Lunch,” Michael says. “I’m pretty sure friends have lunch together.”

Alex blinks, surprised, but with a pleasant little buzz bubbling in his veins. He nods and slides into the opposite side of the booth. 

“Yeah. They do.”

And Michael smiles again, but this time it’s _real_. “Okay then. Let’s get some burgers. I’m starving.”

***

Two days after that, they’re sitting side by side in a darkened theater, watching some cheesy horror movie. Alex grins and shoves popcorn into his mouth; Michael pretends not to close his eyes during the really scary parts. 

They don’t hold hands, and they won’t kiss at the end of the night — so if Alex enjoys the press of Michael’s shoulder against his and the smell of his aftershave a little more than a friend should, well, no one has to know about it. 

***

That Saturday he spends the afternoon soaking up the sunshine in a lawn chair outside Michael’s trailer, working his way through a six-pack and listening to the radio while Michael grills chicken and potatoes and tells him stories from his time out working on the ranch. Alex chimes in with some of the better ones from his stint in the Air Force — the lighter moments, about games and pranks and his friends. 

He laughs more that day than he has in the last year combined. And he discovers, to his delight, that Guerin is funny. _Really_ funny. By the time Alex heads home to his dark cabin his cheeks ache, his skin sun-warm and pink. 

***

“Hand me that crescent wrench, will you?”

Michael’s voice is a little muffled by whatever enormous piece of machinery he’s lying under, but Alex understands enough to bend down and hand him the tool in question. 

Their fingers brush during the exchange; Michael doesn’t even seem to notice. 

Alex certainly does. 

He stands up and wipes his palms on the thighs of his jeans, trying to stop his skin from tingling, then clears his throat and looks around the bunker again. 

“What exactly are you working on anyway?”

So Michael launches back into technical jargon beyond his understanding, something about quantum physics and the transmutation of matter, his easy speech punctuated by the rhythmic, metallic clang of his work. 

Alex just sits in the squeaky rolling chair and surveys Michael’s workshop, all the vials and beakers and twisted bits of metal and glass, the carefully curated collection of a lifelong pursuit — and something warm and fierce surges in his chest. 

It takes him a moment to realize that it’s _pride_. 

***

Two days later he takes Michael to the Project Shepherd bunker. Michael spends a long time staring at his own “Threat Level: Red” classification on the big screen, at the surveillance footage from outside Max’s house, at the newspaper articles and photos from when they were kids. He traces his finger over young Isobel’s face, and Alex knows that he was right to bring Michael in on this. 

“So how can I help you track down this fourth alien?” Michael finally asks. 

“You have more evidence and information regarding the crash than anyone,” Alex says. “I think you’re the only shot we have in finding them.”

Michael rifles through the box filled with documentation Jesse had compiled on Michael and his family, all of it slanderous and stamped with the word _TERRORIST_  in enormous red letters. 

Alex frowns. “If… if you want to help me, that is.”

Michael lifts his eyes and looks over at him through those thick lashes, his mouth curling into that lazy smirk. “Oh, I’ll do anything you want me to, Soldier.” 

It’s the first flash of his old flirtatiousness Alex has seen in a month. But it disappears as quickly as it arrived, a meteor that burns up in the dense atmosphere of their new friendship. 

“Sorry,” Michael mutters, standing up straight and scrubbing a hand across his blushing face. “Sometimes I forget. It, uh, it can be hard to control myself around you.”

Alex takes a deep breath and makes a decision; he drops the heavy file he’s been holding on the table with a loud bang. And then he’s striding toward Michael as quickly as the prosthetic will allow and he doesn’t stop when he draws near, doesn’t slow down until he’s backed Michael up against the far wall, the concrete cool under his palms, the bluish light casting shadows on the sharp lines of Michael’s face. 

“So don’t,” Alex mutters, raw and jagged. 

Michael’s watching him with careful eyes, his hands clenched at his sides. “I thought you wanted to be just friends.”

Alex crowds in even closer until their bodies are pressed together from chest to thigh, all hard heat. He leans in, his lips brushing against the shell of Michael’s ear, his breath hot on his skin. 

“I never said the word _just_.” 

A smile blooms on Michael’s lips; Alex can feel the curve of it when he kisses him. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Just remember: If we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English.”

Liz adjusts her lab coat, then smooths the collar on Alex’s fatigues.

“There,” she says. “We’re ready to go.”

“This is never going to work.”

“Of course it is. We’ve got the uniforms, you made us flawless fake IDs, you can do the whole soldier thing and I can speak scientific jargon well enough to pretend to be one of the biomedical engineers conducting the experiments. We know exactly where in the facility they’re being held—“

“—And it’ll still never work.”

Liz sighs. “Have a little faith, Alex,” she says softly, squeezing his arm. “I’m sure Michael has been holding onto faith in you.”

Alex swallows and looks away for a moment, then sharply nods. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get them out of there.”

“Whatever it takes,” Liz agrees, giving his hand a quick squeeze.

They turn to face the enormous unmarked complex looming in front of them. It looks like a warehouse to the untrained eye, but they know the truth — it’s a top secret government facility devoted to the study of extraterrestrial life.

To Michael’s life. And Max’s. And Isobel’s.

Alex stands up a little straighter; Liz takes a deep breath.

“Just remember: If we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English.”

Alex raises an eyebrow. “Is that a joke? Please tell me that was a joke.”

Liz widens her eyes and shakes her head, shrugging. “No hablo ingles.”

Alex rolls his eyes to the sky. “We’re definitely gonna die.”

***

At the entrance, Alex sets off the metal detector. But he expected this; he just gestures to the crutch and pulls up his pant leg enough to show the prosthetic.

“It’s been a hell of an adjustment, Private,” he tells the soldier standing guard, who just grimaces sympathetically and waves them through.

The IDs work perfectly of course, the electronic locks beeping and allowing them access to each door they approach, the two of them quickly and methodically working their way deeper and deeper into the facility.

It’s only once they reach the high value containment area that they hit a snag — two armed guards stationed at either side of the entryway.

They stare at the steel door, jaws clenching.

Max, Michael, and Isobel are down that hallway, separated from them by just that one last damn door. Alex can practically feel Michael’s calloused palm in his hand; Liz would swear she can smell Max’s aftershave.

“We need to examine the specimens,” Liz says to the guards, her words clipped and sure, the coldly scientific terms tasting sour when applied to people she loves.

But the bigger of the guards shakes his head. “We’re not authorized to allow access to anyone before the vivisection scheduled at 1400.”

Liz steps toward him with a smile, casually spinning the ring on her middle finger and opening its tiny hidden latch with her thumb. The chunky turquoise stone flips to the side, exposing a small needle that’s been coated in a powerful neurotoxin.

“Then there must have been some sort of miscommunication,” she says, resting her hand on his arm.

The needle goes through his sleeve and pierces his skin; the poison she concocted works perfectly.

He drops in a matter of seconds.

The other guard draws his weapon but Alex is ready, knocking the gun from his hand with his crutch, then pressing a lever and revealing the blade he had concealed in its shaft. The guard lunges at him and Alex holds the crutch parallel and steady; the blade runs right through the guard’s heart.

“Oh my god,” Liz mutters, her shaking fingers pressed to her lips as she watches Alex pull the crutch free of the crumpled body and retract the blood-soaked blade back inside.

Alex grabs her by the shoulder. “This is war, Liz. They declared war the second they kidnapped our friends — all we’re doing is conducting a tactical operation to get them back.”

Liz takes a deep breath through her nose; she swears she can smell the coppery tang of the guard’s blood. But she powers through it.

“Whatever it takes,” she says, repeating their earlier vow.

Alex just nods.

They move the bodies clear of the door, scan their IDs, and dart inside.

And there, held in three consecutive cells, are Max, Michael, and Isobel.

They’re being held in sterile white rooms with plexiglass front walls, electronic locks on the doors, and some sort of complicated circuitry encircling the ceilings.

It’s designed to inhibit their powers, she knows — Alex had learned all about it when he was doing the research to plan this rescue mission. Still, she wasn’t prepared to see them all so thin and pale and weak, slumped on the bare concrete floor.

“Fuck,” Alex mutters, already hooking up some device to the lock on Isobel’s cell. It’s something he built himself, designed specifically to break the code on the lock, but it still takes a minute to find the right combination.

Liz just sinks to the floor in front of Max’s cell.

“Liz,” he groans, dragging himself closer to her. His dark hair is a tangled mess falling over his forehead and there’s deep purple bruises under both his eyes and a cut on his neck. She lays one hand against the glass, a tear rolling over the curve of her cheek.

“We’re going to get you out of here, okay? All of you. Just hang on for one more minute.”

The lock beeps and the glass of Isobel’s cell slides open; Liz scrambles to drag her out while Alex moves on to Max’s lock.

Isobel lies in the hallway, breathing deeply, color already returning to her cheeks. And by the time Max’s door opens, she’s feeling good enough to help Liz drag him out with her. The three of them are piled up together on the floor, crying and hugging and laughing as Alex moves on to the final lock.

“Alex,” Michael says through the glass, his voice thin and wheezing. “What are you doing here? You could get caught, you could be charged with treason — it’s too dangerous.” Michael coughs, staggering close to the glass. “Get out of here.”

“In case you haven’t noticed yet, I don’t take orders from you, Guerin,” Alex says, not hesitating for a moment. The lock beeps, the door slides open, and Michael half falls into Alex’s waiting arms.

“I can’t believe you risked everything to save me,” Michael says.

“You are my everything,” Alex murmurs, lips close to his ear.

They stumble out into the hallway, and Michael can already feel his power flowing back into his veins. They all can.

Liz can’t stop kissing Max’s face; Alex and Michael are clinging to one another so tightly it’s as if they’ve been fused into one being.

“Hi,” Isobel finally says with a sarcastic wave, “can you guys save the disgustingly affectionate reunions for when we’re not being held captive in a top secret government black site?”

Liz finally looks up, biting at her lip. “Yeah, well, about that…”

“We don’t actually have a plan for how we’re going to sneak the three of you out of here,” Alex finishes.

The aliens are dressed in bright orange prison jumpsuits and their faces are well known to every employee; it’s not like they can just stroll right out the front door. And Alex hadn’t been able to find a way to smuggle them out through air vents or service hallways — the facility had been designed well.

Too well.

But the aliens are simply smiling. Michael cracks his neck; Isobel tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about that,” Max says, fists clenching as every light and camera and electronic door lock in the entire facility explodes. Sparks fly in bright golden arcs against the sudden blackness; a few seconds later red emergency lights flash on.

In their strobing light they see two guards slam open the door at the far end of the hall.

They’re shouting with their guns drawn and Liz is readying another poison ring and Alex lifts his crutch — but then Isobel simply looks at the guards and suddenly they’re aiming at each other instead.

Boots pound from the other end of the hallway, heavy and rhythmic. They barely reach the corner before Michael throws them against the far wall; they slump to the floor in unconscious heaps.

He grins at his siblings, power and anger and vengeance shining in each of their faces.

“We’ve been making a few plans of our own.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1x10 Coda

The glass rests on Michael’s bed, glimmering in the faint silver starlight drifting through the slit in the curtains. 

The note attached bears Alex’s clean, simple handwriting: _I think this will get you where you want to go. I shouldn’t have kept it from you. After all, i know better than anyone what it’s like to be missing a vital piece._

Michael sighs and sags back against the counter of his tiny kitchenette, running his thumb across the paper, over and over. 

Alex is right. That piece will complete the control panel. It’ll take him back wherever he came from. 

But now Michael knows that unless it’s a time machine, it won’t take him where he wants to go. 

Because that’s back before everything shattered like the bones in his hand, like the spaceship he came here in, like his innocence and youth and dreams for the future. 

Back when he was just a dumb kid in love. 

That’s where he wants to go. That’s who he wants to be.

Michael crumples the note in his good hand.

He has spent his whole life drifting, directionless, a broken compass spinning in chaotic circles.

But right now he feels like an arrow, swift and sure.

He grabs his hat and keys and leaves the glass right where it lies; there are things he needs to resolve on this planet before he can even think about going to another one. 

***

It’s so late that it’s technically early and Alex’s alarm clock will go off in just a couple of hours, summoning him for another long, drab day on base in his itchy uniform, taking orders and trying to ignore the pity lingering in the eyes of his fellow soldiers. 

It’s exhausting, even on the best of days.

Still, sleep isn’t a possibility tonight. His mind is too busy churning through all the information he learned today. From Guerin, from that bunker, from Jim Valenti beyond the grave.

He thinks he understands what Mimi meant about the dangers of touching things from another place now. He’d give anything to go back to believing the biggest threats to his happiness were contained on this one small blue planet.

Alex sighs, stands, and stokes the fire. It blazes, the logs popping and loudly shifting, so he’s not sure if Guerin knocked first or just let himself in. 

Either way, he’s not surprised to see him when he turns around. This is how it has always been, the two of them holding onto each other even while pulling away, trapped together in a centrifugal field.

“That door was locked,” Alex says.

Michael shuts it behind him with his mind and raises his chin a little, challenging. “So was the one on my trailer.”

Alex replaces the poker, the clanging iron ringing in his ears, and flexes his fingers in front of the fire. He watches it burn for a long moment, letting the heat soak into his joints. “You got my gift, then,” he murmurs.

“Is that what that was? A gift?” Michael steps closer and Alex turns toward him again, unable to resist looking at him anymore. Michael’s endless kinetic energy seems to have stilled; the only movement is his eyes darting between Alex’s, searching, as if he can find the truth in their dark depths. “Or was it a permission slip?”

Alex swallows, but he doesn’t look away. He doesn’t blink, he doesn’t back down.

He never does.

“It was freedom, Guerin. It was me giving you a choice.”

The firelight dances across the side of Michael’s face, its sharp angles cast in brilliant oranges and dark shadows. Alex wonders if this is what he’ll look like when he fires up the engines on his spaceship. When he leaves — for good, this time.

Michael takes a step closer; Alex holds his ground.

“So what if I choose to stay?”

A bubble of hope rises in Alex’s chest, quickly expanding to the point of pain; he squeezes his eyes shut and forces it to burst. He knows better. He knows _Guerin_ better. 

Alex shakes his head. “I saw that bunker. You’ve devoted your entire life to this, and now it’s yours. You’re going to take it.”

Michael steps even closer; he smells like skin and motor oil and whiskey and leather and smoke. He smells like joy.

He smells like heartbreak.

Alex coils his fingers into a fist to stop them from shaking.

“That bunker,” Michael says, his voice pitched low, “my work… it’s all just been a search for the place where I belong.” He tilts his head a little, staring at Alex, and moves even closer; the space between them pierces and pulls like a fishing hook caught around Alex’s sternum. “Maybe I’ve finally found it.”

The desert outside suffers silently through the cold, dark, moonless night, but Alex doesn’t feel it, wrapped here in a small space of heat and light and hope. He feels the rush that flooded through him the first time he jumped out of an airplane — the roar of blood in his ears, the pounding of his heart the second his feet left safety and went into free fall. 

Because this is it: This is the moment where one of them runs away, or starts a fight, or gives in to the spark igniting between them, letting it blaze into a raging inferno that consumes them both. 

But this time, no one’s running. No one’s moving.

Alex isn’t even sure if he’s _breathing_.

He squares his shoulders, raises his chin… and he jumps.

“Yeah. Maybe you have.”

Michael’s answering smile is brilliant, burning brighter than the coming dawn.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For @roswellprompts: Back in high school hanging out in the truck bed, Michael painted Alex’s nails and accidentally dripped some polish onto the truck bed. At the drive-in, Alex sees it’s still there… all these years later.  
> (I deviated from the prompt just slightly.)

It’s just a black dot. Faded with age, chipped on one edge, barely noticeable amongst the scratches and stains and detritus rattling around the back of Guerin’s ancient truck. It shouldn’t mean anything.

It _can’t._

But that doesn’t stop Alex’s heart from racing at the sight of it. 

It seems to stare back at him in the flickering light of the movie he hasn’t actually paid any attention to, a beer bottle dangling between two fingers and frozen halfway to his lips. 

He knows that dot; that dot _matters_.

He _made_ that dot.

***

**2008**

The summer sun is merciless, baking into their faces and shoulders as they sit in the middle of nowhere, their backs against the cab of the truck, their legs stretched across the bed.

(And maybe their thighs are resting a little closer than friends normally would sit, their kneecaps brushing. And maybe it makes Alex’s heart slide up into his throat and his palms so sweaty that he nearly drops the bottle of black nail polish in his fingers, but that’s irrelevant.)

What is relevant is the wobble in his hands as he tries to touch up his left pinky, the fat drop that stretches from the edge of the brush and _drops_ , falling into the rusty bed.

Michael’s rusty bed. The one that he literally sleeps in.

“Damn it,” Alex mutters, hastily replacing the bottle’s cap and looking around for something to clean it with. His book bag is still in the passenger’s seat, the homework he was theoretically going to work on this afternoon forgotten in lieu of listening to Michael play for the sand and lizards and tumbleweeds, to watching the way the creases leave Michael’s face as his fingers move over the guitar strings, to the feeling of his skin baking as sweat rolls down his neck and still wishing he was hotter, their bodies even closer. 

The only thing he has in the truck bed with him is the bottle of polish and the clothes on his back. But he knows what this truck means to Michael, and he’ll be damned if he does anything to damage it in any way. So Alex whips off his black t-shirt—

—and Michael plays a hideously wrong chord, loud enough to echo off the distant hills, his whole face falling into a mask of shock.

“Alex, what—” he has to swallow, as if his mouth is suddenly dry as the desert around them, “—what the hell are you doing?”

“I dripped nail polish. I don’t have anything else to wipe it up with.”

And Michael is too distracted at the expanse of skin, at the sunlit display of muscles and strength and _nipples_ to stop him in time.

“There,” Alex murmurs, the now-stained shirt balled up in his lap as he runs his thumb over the hot metal. “I got it in time. You’ll never know it was there.”

Michael’s gaze can’t stop moving, sliding from Alex’s hands to his shoulders to his face to his hips, the black skinny jeans resting low over his visible hipbones. Alex studies him back, a little confused, a little curious.

Michael finally shakes his head. “Then drop another one.”

Alex blinks. “What?”

“Do it again. Leave a mark.” Michael grins and strums the guitar a few times, loud and dramatic. “Prove that you were here.”

Alex answers, low and soft. “But this truck is your _home_ , Guerin.”

“Exactly,” Michael says, and yeah, he’s a little nervous — but his voice holds steady. He just shrugs and stares down at his guitar and very carefully _doesn’t_ look at Alex. “I want to roll over at night and see a sign that you were here. That these afternoons we spend together aren’t just some dream.”

Alex knows the feeling. Michael left his mark on him weeks ago, with nothing more than a smile and a joke and a couple of chords; Alex would love to have some tangible sign of it to cling to at night. 

So he swallows and dips the brush back in the bottle, then holds it high over the middle of the truck bed.

Black and shining and viscous, the polish seems to fall in slow motion, splashing into a dime-sized circle right next to where he imagines Michael’s head rests every night.

Michael nods and smiles, small and private and pleased. 

He starts playing something softer, slower — Alex thinks he recognizes it as an old love song from when they were kids. So he just leans back and finishes painting his nails, his heart feeling as warm as his skin is beneath the scorching desert sun. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt: After 1x11 Michael is hopeful about his future with Alex so he starts working on a secret project. He disappears after work for hours at a time and Alex starts to get worried about what he's doing. Finally though one night Michael takes Alex to this place just outside of town and there's candles everywhere and he says "this is our house."

Alex waits precisely 48 hours before calling Max at the precinct. 

“This is Deputy Evans,” Max answers in his signature baritone, the sounds of the station filtering in from the background — the hum of voices and phones ringing shrilly, metal clanking on metal, heavy boots stomping across linoleum floors. Alex can practically see the stale donut and mug of burnt coffee in Max’s hands. 

But he doesn’t care about any of that. 

“Your brother is missing,” he says, clipped and serious. He expects some kind of immediate response — professional or emotional or, ideally, a blend of the two — but Max just sighs. It seems to echo down the phone line, carrying with it visions of the dramatic slump of Max’s shoulders, his chin dropping to his chest, a thick lock of dark hair falling across his forehead. 

“No, he isn’t.”

Alex squeezes his phone a little tighter, the plastic case squeaking in protest. “I can’t find him in any of his usual haunts. He’s not answering his phone—“

“He never answers his phone, because it’s always rattling around the cab of his truck with a dead battery, buried under a month’s worth of crumpled hamburger wrappers.” 

“Sanders said he hasn’t seen him in two days,” Alex grits out. 

“Sanders hasn’t seen anyone in years,” Max answers with an amused little goddamned _chuckle_. “He’s half blind.”

Alex takes a deep breath, letting it out slow and measured and even. “No one has seen him, Max. His truck’s missing, the Airstream looks untouched—“

“Look, Alex, this is just… it’s just Michael being Michael.” Max is speaking lightly, distracted, the sound of paper rustling in the background as if he already considers the conversation finished and Alex simply hasn’t caught up yet. “This is what he does; he’ll turn up soon enough. You’ll get used to it. In the meantime, if someone hauls him into the drunk tank, I’ll give you a call.”

Alex jabs the bright red “end call” button so hard his finger hurts. 

* * *

The next night he calls Isobel. The phone rings four times before she finally answers with a breathless little “Hello?”

“Is Michael with you?”

She laughs, loud and bawdy, at some private joke Alex absolutely does _not_ want to know the punchline to. 

“Definitely not,” she says. “Is that all you need? Because we’re, _ahem_ , a little tied up right now.”

“I’ll be quick. I just need to know if you’ve seen Michael at any time in the past several days.”

“No, I haven’t, and Noah hasn’t mentioned seeing him, either. I’d double check but he won’t be able to answer around the ball gag.”

Alex grimaces. “That’s not really information that I needed, Isobel.”

“Then don’t call me on Bondage Thursday,” she answers breezily. “I’m sure he’s fine, Alex. This is just what Michael does sometimes. We’ve all had to get used to it.”

“Right. Yeah. Thanks,” Alex says, then hangs up the phone with a frown. 

He’s just realizing that he hasn’t had to get used to _anything_ about Michael before. 

He’s never stuck around long enough for Michael to be the one to walk away.

* * *

The Pony is busy when Alex stops by at the end of the third day, but Maria makes time for him as always.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen him in weeks,” she says, sliding his favorite beer to him before he even orders. The frosty glass leaves a wet streak across the scarred wooden bar top. “Pretty much since I found out about you two.”

“About that,” Alex says, picking absently at the label on his bottle, “I never meant for you to feel—“

“I know,” Maria says, resting one hand softly on top of Alex’s. “No one meant to hurt anyone, and it didn’t mean anything, so it’s all good on my end.”

Alex smiles a little, the first genuine one that’s crossed his lips in days. “Mine, too.”

“Good.” Maria gives his hand another squeeze and then straightens up, starting to mix a drink for the woman sitting on the barstool beside him. “Then stay and enjoy karaoke night and try not to worry about Guerin, okay? He takes off like a stray cat sometimes but he always comes slinking back home eventually. I’m sure he’s fine, wherever he is.”

Alex gives her a tight nod and raises the bottle to his lips, taking a long pull. 

* * *

The next morning, Liz blinks at him owlishly from behind enormous plastic safety glasses, something blue and sulfuric-smelling bubbling away in a beaker behind her.

“Yeah, Michael came by earlier this week,” she says, gesturing vaguely in a way that makes the silver bracelets on her wrist clank together. “He was working on developing some new way to store solar energy more efficiently and wanted to bounce some ideas off me, see if he could get some inspiration from the biological processes of energy conversion.” 

She pours a small vial of clear liquid into the boiling blue until it foams and thickens, turning a dark green hue. “Interesting,” she mutters to herself, making a notation on the laptop beside her. 

Alex waits for a few seconds before clearing his throat. “Liz?”

“Yeah?”

“Michael?”

“Oh, right,” she says, shaking her head a little; a loose piece of her dark hair slides against her cheek. “He had a pretty great concept actually — we messed around with a few experiments, and I think he came up with a decent prototype.”

“For storing solar energy?”

“Yeah. He wanted to have access to a large quantity of energy for an indefinite period of time. He must have been wanting to power an entire structure or some industrial equipment, maybe, I don’t know. Something pretty big.”

Alex grips the edge of her work table hard enough to bleach his knuckles a pale white, the room seeming to spin around him for a second. He’s suddenly having a hard time breathing — and it’s got nothing to do with Liz’s terrible-smelling experiment. 

He’s just been struck with a terrible idea. 

* * *

It should feel weird to be in Michael’s trailer without him, but it doesn’t. Alex has never felt anything except welcomed here, safe and cozy and wanted. He hasn’t seen Michael in days, but every inch of this place feels like him, _smells_ like him. It’s like being wrapped in Michael’s arms, even in his absence, and Alex has always found that feeling far more comforting than he was willing to admit. 

But given what he thinks he’s looking at now, it’s frightening. 

Terrifying.

Because he might be on the verge of losing that feeling for good. 

Dust motes spin through sunbeams leaking in around the curtains, providing just enough light to show Alex the schematics laid out on Michael’s table. He doesn’t fully understand them but he can tell that it’s a generator of some kind — and he only has one idea for what it could power. 

The spaceship that he saw in the bunker twenty feet below him. 

The one Michael was building to take him home.

* * *

Alex drags himself back to his cabin late after searching for Michael in every dusty corner of this sun-soaked town. He’s been desperate and frantic for hours now, terrified that he’s too late, that Michael blasted off without so much as a goodbye. 

After all — everyone else who knows him says that’s what he does. That he’s moody and flaky, that he disappears without warning.

And there’s no reason Alex should have expected special treatment. 

So now it’s dark and cold and his leg aches; he’s exhausted and dejected and nearly misses the note tacked to his front door. 

All it says is, _You wanna go for a ride?_

Alex spins too quickly, having to steady himself against the cabin door as he searches his yard and driveway for a truck that he knows isn’t there. If Michael had been here waiting for him Alex would have known it, _sensed_ him somehow. 

But that note. That’s Michael’s favorite pick-up line and it’s written in Michael’s messy scrawl; he can practically hear how the words sound in Michael’s voice, the warm, lazy way they’d tumble from his lips as he leaned against his truck, his eyes dancing with the promise of a good time.

God knows Alex has taken enough rides with Guerin over the years to memorize every detail. 

And every time he’d said those words — every time Alex had agreed to go for a ride — they’d gone to this one particular spot in the desert. It was far enough from the edge of town to feel like they were the only people left on Earth, not so far that they couldn’t be there and back before anyone missed them.

The perfect spot.

_Their_ spot.

Alex turns back to his car, his keys jingling in his shaking fingers.

* * *

He’s there in less than fifteen minutes, his chest tight, his heart so high and frantic he’s nearly choking on it. But he was right; this is where he’s supposed to be.

Because he can see the glow from far down the dirt road. 

As he rolls closer it becomes warm and golden and alive, a thousand tiny flames dancing atop white candles that are placed _everywhere._ They illuminate the barest skeleton of a house, its timber bones standing pale against the dark desert stretching for miles around. 

Alex parks and eases out of the car, taking his time to look around the the candlelit outline of the structure. There’s the bit of machinery Michael had been working on, attached to what looks like a generator and well pump. Wires and piping lie in a shallow trench connecting it to the concrete foundation. A pile of construction materials rises in a formless dark mass off to his left and there’s little else there, but Alex can see the shape of what it will eventually become. A house.

A _home._

One that’s comfortable enough but simple in design; just a single story of studs and promise and candlelight and, standing in the center of it all, Michael Guerin.

“You’ve been missing for the better part of a week,” Alex says, confused and relieved and angry and anxious now that he finally has eyes on him, now that he knows Michael is safe and scheming and _here_. “I was worried. I thought you’d left the damn _planet_ , and then I find a cryptic note that summons me out to the middle of nowhere late at night to see, what, exactly? An epic fire hazard?”

“I wasn’t missing; I was busy. I wanted to surprise you. And it’s not a hazard.” Michael rubs at the back of his neck and looks away for a second. “It’s a home.”

“I can see that,” Alex says, carefully walking close to the candle outline of what will eventually be a wide front porch. “But, why? You’ve decided to go into carpentry and wanted to announce it in the most dramatic way possible?”

“No. It’s not a new career — this is definitely just a one-time thing.” Michael stretches out a hand to help Alex up onto the foundation, then doubles down on the gesture, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tightly. “I just, I thought it’d be nice if I built us a place with my own two hands… and some freaky alien telekinesis.”

Michael shrugs and grins, trying to plaster over his nerves with bravado, but that trick has never has quite worked right with Alex. He could always see through it, right down to the essential truth of Michael, the secret, squishy, soft center that he works so hard to hide.

So Alex knows which word of that statement really matters.

He raises a questioning eyebrow. “Us?”

“Yeah,” Michael says, with a deep breath and single nod. “I mean, I know we’re not at that place yet and that’s okay, I’m not trying to rush. I just thought… someday. Maybe. And when — if — that day comes, your cabin is too small and my trailer is too crappy, and I bought this land ages ago but it was just sitting here empty so I thought—“

“Yes.”

Alex’s heart is racing and he’s certain that this is the craziest thing either of them have ever done, but he just spent a week contemplating the possibility of never seeing Michael again. So the idea of sharing space with him, of coming home to those wild curls and muddy boots and faded t-shirts, of falling asleep every night with his nose pressed into the back of Michael’s neck and eating his terrible, rubbery fried eggs for breakfast every morning, of going grocery shopping together and doing loads of laundry with both their clothes mixed in and bickering over what color to paint the living room—

The only thing Alex could ever say to that is yes. _Yes_. It might be his new favorite word. 

So he says it again. 

“Yes.”

“Wait, really? You’re actually saying yes? To this? To _me_?” Michael is frozen, his whole body still, rigid, and terrified.

“ _Yes,_ ” Alex exhales, laughing, smiling, his breath blowing across Michael’s grinning face. 

And Alex can still feel the shape of that one perfect word in the curve of his lips when Michael crushes their bodies together and captures them with his own. 


End file.
